Photos: Foreign tourists' trip in “modern and friendly” Pyongyang

17:01, October 22, 2009

A mother and her son from Holland paid 7,000 euro to participate in an 8-day travel group. (People's Daily Online Photo)

Recently, some western tourists can be spotted visiting travel sites in Pyongyang. They all said that Pyongyang was quite different from their imagination. A tourist from Holland said, “Pyongyang is clean and tidy, the buildings in Pyongyang are very modern.”

In order to experience the real DPRK, a mother and her son from Holland paid 7,000 euro to participate in an 8-day travel group. They first took a fight from Holland to Beijing and than traveled to Dandong (a city in Liaoning province). Finally, they reached Pyongyang by train.

The mother gave a very high evaluation of Pyongyang. She said the capital city is so clean, tidy and modern. There are many splendid buildings in Pyongyang which were mainly constructed in 1980s.

On the other side of the square, the reporter found another travel group. The tourists in this group are from France, Spain and even America. They all booked their trip in a travel agency in Beijing.

According to an American woman who didn’t want to tell her name, she was here both on business and travel.

“People have too much misunderstanding about Pyongyang,” she said. This is her first time traveling in the DPRK. “People here are very friendly and we feel at home here.”